


He Doesn't Sleep

by strawberrywine17



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, Gen, If You Squint - Freeform, No real warnings I don't think, Prumano - Freeform, fading, i wrote this at midnight and I'm proud as fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 22:25:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5022889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrywine17/pseuds/strawberrywine17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, he suffers alone, just like he always has. He lets the smoke asphyxiate him and lets the dark smother him. He lets his eyes bleed green and red from razor edged numbers while listening to the thump in his chest just wishing, hoping, praying that somehow, some way, that sound will stay and the digits won't fade and he'll live to see another day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Doesn't Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> A quick study into how alike Romano and Prussia are. Pick either Romano or Prussia, read this through their eyes, then reread it through the other's eyes. Just try it. 
> 
> Warning- this is sad.

He doesn't sleep that night.

He hasn't. Not for years now. He sits in bed and he waits, and he watches, and he lets three hundred and sixty five days of regrets and broken promises fly across his mind's eye. He listens to the rain on the window, or the owls in the trees. Sometimes, he listens to nothing at all but the silence. The silence that spreads ugly black fingers through the ground and under the crack of the door, up the stairs, across the hall, over the bed, into his nose and mouth, all to fill his lungs with thick smoke to choke him, leaving him heaving and shaking on the sweat soaked sheets. 

He doesn't sleep, not because he doesn't want to, but because he can't. He tells himself every year that it'll be alright. That he'll have not changed. That he'll still be who he is. But that is just not true. That has never been true. One year can make all the difference, and he knows this too well. One year, and peace can be turned into blood, another year and the blood is soaked into the dirt, another year and armistices and treaties blossom from the soil. Yes, one year can certainly make a difference. 

He never underestimates time. He's seen the effects and he's seen the good and the bad. He's watched countless lives pass before him, and knows that there's something different, something unreal and fake about him, a being created from a faux pas, a litany of lies that cannot be corrected. Not even God himself has ever tried to unravel what he is and what he has become, and quite frankly, he doesn't need to ask why. He knows why already. 

He knows that no one knows. That, in and of itself, is the simple and irrefutable truth. No one knows anything about them, whether they are the same as he or they are... Human. And that is why he clutches the pillow to his chest and he watches the clock with the lights dark, the furnace off, windows shut, doors locked, shades drawn, and communication cut. No one knows. 

And because no one knows, he doesn't let it sneak up on him. He doesn't allow that uncertainty to hang over his head. He turns off his phone and throws it under his bed; his brother might call, will call, has called, but he never answers. The boy needs to learn that his brother cannot provide everything for him. He cannot provide even answers. So he lets him think that this year is the final year, and he lets him knock at the door and tap at the window, but it's dark now, and the little one needs to be on time, needs to be early, to see him this night, to understand-

But the boy will never understand. Because he never opens the door. He never unlocks a window. No matter the time, no matter how early he calls or visits, it will never be early enough. Because he's been preparing for this for a year now, over and over. And he knows the tips, and he knows the tricks, and he knows what to do to get the little one out just long enough to stall him until the night grows too cold, even for him. 

In the end, he suffers alone, just like he always has. He lets the smoke asphyxiate him and lets the dark smother him. He lets his eyes bleed green and red from razor edged numbers while listening to the thump in his chest just wishing, hoping, praying that somehow, some way, that sound will stay and the digits won't fade and he'll live to see another day. 

And maybe it's a relief when those knives shift from 11:59 to 12:00 and he's still there. And maybe he lets his breath pass as wind over parched pink lips, and he closes his eyes as the time turns to 12:05 then to 12:58 then to 2:32. And maybe he presses bony thin fingers to hollowed bruised sockets to wipe away the dew collected upon long lashes, but who could blame him? 

He doesn't sleep; no, not tonight. He knows he's alive now, he knows he has one more year, one more orbit. He knows he has the time of a blink of an eye compared to the rest of his life but he thinks he prefers a blink over the press of warm fingers to the cold of his flesh to hide the irises that have seen too much and said too little. 

He doesn't sleep because now is the time to start planning that blink. To start wishing and hoping and wanting again. He doesn't sleep because he has so much to do, so much to say, and a blink isn't enough, but it's more time than he thought when he dressed in his uniform and pinned his awards to his chest and laid down in his bed to wait through the night.

He doesn't sleep, because he assumes- but he doesn't actually know. 

He doesn't know there's another one like him. A different time, a different place, but the same with breaths like snakes and tears like stars over skin so thin it must be paper for all the stories and the errors inked in permanent pen over their quivering, shivering, silent bodies. 

He doesn't know there's another waiting, just waiting, to know if this is the year, if this is the night, that they will fade, wondering just the same as he has wondered as time drifts on. 

He doesn't know. He stays alone. 

So he takes another breath, and he takes another step, and he lets his mind drift until his birthday comes 'round again.


End file.
